Like so many developments, it was named for what it replaced — a farm, Franklin Farm, to be specific. I’ve strolled here several times in the last week, pondering place, as I often do, thinking about the leafy suburbs with their curved streets and their treacherous four-lane connector roads.

While researching my thesis recently, I read about Franklin Farm, just a mention of its creation by developer John T. “Til” Hazel, the man who arguably had more to do with the look and feel of my place than any other.

Hazel was born on a farm in McLean in 1930 and died on a farm in Fauquier County in 2022. In between, he helped transform Fairfax County from a land of farms to a land of subdivisions and shopping centers. First he represented developers, then he became one.

Hazel did much good for our county, was a juggernaut behind the expansion of George Mason University, for example. But his idea of open space was that it needed to be filled. We walk — when we can find a path or sidewalk — in his footsteps.